Gregers.
What? my old college friend married fifteen years ago—and to our Gina, of all people! If I had not been up at the works all these years, I suppose I should have heard something of such an event. But my father never mentioned it. Odd!
[He ponders; Old Ekdal comes out through the green baize-door, bowing, and begging pardon, carrying copying work. Old Werle says "Ugh" and "Pah" involuntarily. Hialmar shrinks back, and looks another way. A Chamberlain asks him pleasantly if he knows that old man.
Hialmar.
I—oh no. Not in the least. No relation!
Gregers.
[Shocked.] What, Hialmar, you, with your great soul, deny your own father!
Hialmar.
[Vehemently.] Of course—what else can a photographer do with a disreputable old parent, who has been in a penitentiary for making a fraudulent map? I shall leave this splendid banquet. The Chamberlains are not kind to me, and I feel the crushing hand of fate on my head!
[Goes out hastily, feeling it.